Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-01-01
THE RIBS OF DEATH"

nv mother, who, with the rest OF the
fishermen's wives. awaited the landing
of the little fleet.
Perhaps this was the reason why l
had such an instructive horror and
dread of the sea, even while it fascin-
ated and drew lie to it in its stormiest
moods. 1t was a queer feeling that
possessed me. When away from the
sight and the sound of the breakers, |
was restless and unquiet; near them ]
was awed and melancholy, but some
craving Of my nature was satisfied, and
1 was comparatively calm. believe
many of our people, who are intensely
superstitious, looked upon me as
doomed in consequence of this. 1.-The
sea always swallows what it gets a hold
off, they said among themselves with
sorrowful fatalism. We can hardly
help being superstitious and gloomy
we who are born and reared in Caller
mouth. Nature is so stern in her
moods and so cruel in her way OF ex-
pressing them.
Miss Ashford, our wears daughter,
is very cross at me for saying things
like this, but / cannot help thinking
that ever she feels them to be true
sometimes during the long and stormy
winters on this northeast coast of ours
She is very kind and good, and rs
she is always busy working among us
perhaps that helps her through. 1t was
she who taught me how to write and
put sentences together sc rs to make
this story Ineligible. and it was she
who wished me to write it. Why, /
do not know. When | told IT TO her
first | hardly expected her to believe it,
but she did, and helped me through
the bad time which / had after-but
that must bide until | come to it.
Callormouth is only "A cluster of
cottages around a little harbor, with a
pier l3d life-boat house below. About
II mile 10 the north is the ugly sharp
ridge Of rocks which bears the signiii-
cant name of the ribs o. Death"
Many n fine vessel has struck and
ground her timbers to match wood,
and many "A poor clinging life has been
washed off those fatal ribs. They do
say that in the old times many a ship
but l can scarce believe the grand
fathers of our brave fellows, who lived
by and on the waters just as now,
could be inhuman enough to trade upon
THE danger and deaths of fellow-mari-
ners. Only ! must say that even yet.
while any n of our men would risk
his life without thinking twice about
il to save another he wouldn't have
any very definite ideas on the laws of
salvage.
was not o comely lass in the esti-
nation of the village critics. In fact,
when ! saw my little white face, with
it's big dark eyes, in the dim old look
ing-glass which hung owe the mantel-
piece i'm Il front room. and compared
it with that of Belle Carr, our highest
and best-looking girl, / used to feel
very small and insignificant. She was
a true fisher lass, tall and strongly
made, with a swinging walk and saucy
smile, and a ready word for every one,
gentle or simple. The artists who
came here sometimes to paint us in our
characteristic blue nannels always Sc
lected her and passed me over. was
not a type and she was, they said.
Well. | was glad of it, for Willie
wouldn't have liked me to act rs model.
Spite OF my want of beauty ] had two
lads come counting me, and Willie
Lisle was the one | favored. Edam
(Adam) Carr was too much of my own
temper for me, too gloomy; | was
afraiu VI MN, ndu inc SAME sOII VI
mistrus, 9 Sim that | had of the sea,
and per 5 a little of the same idea
of his possible power over me But
Willie, with his bonnie yellow curls,
and his blue eyes, and his sunny
sp,ile, what girl could have resisted
himp He brought his brightness into
my life, and it seemed to go out like
the sun beneath a cloud the day he
sailed i'm the Rowena. bound for China
and the East Indies, from the Tyne.
ALL our most energetic and enterpris-
ing young men become sailors, if they
do not feel satisfied to be fishermen rs
their fathers before them. 1t never
seems to enter into any of their heads
that there are other means of livelihood
than those two callings. They cannot
tear themselves away from the sea al
together, however they may abuse it.
They inhale its salt breeze with their
earliest breaths, its foam and spray beat
on them until it becomes part of them,
as it were, and they are are as much crea-
lures of the waves as the fishes that
swim beneath or the gulls that float
above. So it was that when Willie